State Department Sanctions Greek Anarchist Group

The U.S. State Department said Thursday it designated the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, a Greek anarchist group, and placed it under sanctions.

State said it made the designation because of the group’s alleged targeting of civilian and government officials, both Greek and foreign, “in an attempt to spread its violent anarchist ideology.”

It is the third anarchist group targeted for sanctions by the U.S. State Department since 2009, it said.

The group, also known by its initials SPF or as Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, burst onto the scene in January 2008 with fire-bombings of car dealerships and banks in Athens and Thessaloniki, and four of its members were arrested in 2009 as it tried to develop more sophisticated bombs, State said in its statement.

Greece arrested two SPF members earlier this year for their alleged involvement in a November 2010 attempt to mail parcel bombs to European Union government offices in Germany and Italy, as well as Greek foreign embassies, State said.

Separately, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control removed England’s Dominion International from its blacklist. The entity was designated in the early 1990s as a front company for Iraq to acquire military technology.

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